Breaking treaties

[alva]

This is i noticed today.

there are still 7 civ around, most of them are cautious to annoyed, but hold no real threath. Except for the Germans who have alwayss been good friends and are polite to gracious.
I'm at war with France.Have a ROP + MPP + alliance+ trade embargo against France with Germany
and a couple of trade embargo's going against France with various partners.

After a couple of turns i wipe the French from the map: and suddenly Germany goes to cautious.

WHY???, i havn't broken any treaties have I ??
I didn't deny them trading with France since we hade a trade embargo against France.

So anyone??

[Theseus]

A major factor in how the AI civs think of you is your general strength.

If in wiping out France you became the leader, the AI civs will look at you askance.

Germany now, logically, considers you a threat, even though you have been more or less partners.

Hmmm, Bizzy-marcky looks tempting, eh?

[alva]

mmm maybe, but even before this i allready was in the lead. So i gueass that's not it.

I might have figured it out though
Perhaps they were selling tech (wich you can still do even with a trade embargo) to france for GPT. Since France is no longer there, well they not paying anymore are they

But this is not the case for Germany, afterall they were at war with France, so they could't do any trading at all
or am i missing something?

[Theseus]

There are many reasons why Germany could get mad.

For instance, if they were getting many gpt from France, enough to pay you whatever they owe, and now they can't afford it, the Germans will get angry.

It's pretty complex, like RL...

If you definitely want to make nice with Germany, give'em 5 gp each turn.

On the other hand, taking Berlin is usually a major mood modifier.

[dexters]

Hewheheheh.

Theseus, I noticed that the AI stays on furious for a LONG time when you've captured on of their cities. This happened to me with the Japanese. I captured 2 cities, a Japanese island city off my coast a city on their mainland.

The some turns later, a world war erupted, all the civs vs me--The chinese went around signing Military alliances against me!. I know that the city on the mainland was difficult to defend and decided to pull back to the island and give the city to the Japanese, who hasn't yet declared war. I joined ALL the japanese workers I've captured into the city I was about to leave and gave it to japan. They accepted, but remaiend furious. It wasn't until something like 30 or heck maybe 50 turns later that they became annoyed.

[alva]

Originally posted by dexters
Hewheheheh

OT: I don't really care what them Germans think of me
the game should be won anyway (would like to finish at least one, so i'll keep going for a bit more on this one )

Was just curious why they did change from polite to cautious, that's all. They might around in a couple of turn, after they had some time wether or not to p*ss me of

not bad for my first emperor game

[Prince]

Well, in my current game, I'm stuck on a large continent with 2 (previously 3 ) civs and I'm kind of stuck in the middle. Both the Indians and the Japanese were always polite towards me, but the Indians started moving troops into my territory and suddenly declared war a couple of turns later. Nothing happened to the Japanese, but I still can't figure out why the Indians declared war on me. Maybe they didn't like my iron monopoly

Point, the AI can do some strange things sometimes.

[Arrian]

I'd bet Germany had trade deals with France that were cut off due to your destruction of France. If Bismarck was buying resources or luxuries from France, which you now have, he may be annoyed at you. Try selling him some stuff.

Sometimes it's just the jump in power. You get strong, the AI gets jumpy. Especially Bismarck, who is coded to be ornery. I played a game once where I never did anything wrong to Bismarck, and had several trade deals with him. He was "furious" for centuries, but too much of a wimp to do anything about it (he was, after all, stuck on Australia).

-Arrian

[dunk]

I think the AI is either cautious or annoyed unless you have a Right of Passage with them.

I had almost every civ annoyed or furious with me. So, I signed ROPs with them. Now, anybody's military units can go anywhere they like. Also, every civ is now Polite with me.

[alva]

Originally posted by Arrian
I'd bet Germany had trade deals with France that were cut off due to your destruction of France. If Bismarck was buying resources or luxuries from France, which you now have, he may be annoyed at you. Try selling him some stuff.

-Arrian

Hmm, don't think so.
He was at war with France, i sort of forced him into it , letting France attack me on my soil. We both (France and I had MPP's with Germany).
So Germany was not doing ANY trading with France.

Anothing thing: The way MPP's are triggered seems a bit symplistic to me.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by dunk999
I think the AI is either cautious or annoyed unless you have a Right of Passage with them.

I had almost every civ annoyed or furious with me. So, I signed ROPs with them. Now, anybody's military units can go anywhere they like. Also, every civ is now Polite with me.

Three words about RoP's with the AI:

Watch your back.

-Arrian

[Fitz]

Alva, it's very simple:

1) Germany's natural state towards you while in a ROP & MPP is cautious.
2) While you were in an alliance against France and a trade embargo against France, his mood was artificial inflated by these facts to polite.
3) Once you killed France, the alliance and embargo ended, and his mood returned to its natural state, to whit: cautious.

I notice this all the time. Civs all cautious, sign alliances and they get bumped up to polite, war/alliance ends and they go back to cautious. Sometimes they even drop to furious, their natural (ie uninfluenced by alliance) mood having droped to that point during the course of the alliance, but the mood inflation kept me from noticing in the mean time.

[Arrian]

Excellent points, Fitz. I've seen the same thing in my games.

-Arrian

[dexters]

It is also one of the nice touches to give the AI civs some humanity.

Some AI civs, I find, tend to view your in a hostile light, and while their views will go up a notch or two in an alliance, once that alliance ends and the common enemy is gone, they return to feeling hostile towards you.

Doesn't that pretty much describe real life geopolitical relationships between nations?

Russia-US-UK (Allies)

Russia vs US (cold war)

US - China (allies against Russia)

US v China (Bush's strategic competitor speech)

US-Russia (War on Terrorism)

It's remarkably true to life and one of the many small touches most detractors of the game fail to notice.

[alva]

@ dexters: Good point

I hardly ever compare civ to RL though, for me it is a game

but it's to see things like this from time to time :b

[miccofl]

All very good points, but could someone please explain this? I (the Americans) am/are the number one civ, all are cautious or polite to me (they should be, I’m paying them enough) and now the game is getting a little boring – time for a war. So I invade number two, get all my well paid “friends” to join in the fun by either an alliance or because we had an MPP and my enemy counter-attacked. I eliminate my adversary in a few turns (my allies never even fired a shot) and now everyone is annoyed and cannot be bought.

[alva]

@miccofl

I guess this is what Fitz is taking about

[vondrack]

Originally posted by miccofl
All very good points, but could someone please explain this? I (the Americans) am/are the number one civ, all are cautious or polite to me (they should be, I’m paying them enough) and now the game is getting a little boring – time for a war. So I invade number two, get all my well paid “friends” to join in the fun by either an alliance or because we had an MPP and my enemy counter-attacked. I eliminate my adversary in a few turns (my allies never even fired a shot) and now everyone is annoyed and cannot be bought.

Just kidding, but...

What would you expect them to do? They don't know which one of them is going to be your next victim... you clearly demonstrated what their future would be like... If I were them, I would also become annoyed!

[Fitz]

mic, if you eliminate #2, that puts you even further in advance of the (new) second ranked player. I'm not saying that is the way the mood works, but do you think it's possible ... ?

[jsw363]

Originally posted by dexters
Hewheheheh.

Theseus, I noticed that the AI stays on furious for a LONG time when you've captured on of their cities. This happened to me with the Japanese. I captured 2 cities, a Japanese island city off my coast a city on their mainland. I joined ALL the japanese workers I've captured into the city I was about to leave and gave it to japan. They accepted, but remaiend furious. It wasn't until something like 30 or heck maybe 50 turns later that they became annoyed.

I gave a French city to the Greeks and they weren't too pleased either. You'd think that the gift of a city would do something to alleviate the tension between two nations, but I guess not...

[miccofl]

Originally posted by Fitz
mic, if you eliminate #2, that puts you even further in advance of the (new) second ranked player. I'm not saying that is the way the mood works, but do you think it's possible ... ?

It’s possible, but this effect happens even when I am after a weak civ. It seems every time I have a military alliance or another civ gets sucked into the conflict, when I eliminate the civ they (my allies) become upset and even ridiculous bribes (like four techs and 1000 gold) have no effect – unless I declare another war and drag them into it whereupon they become polite again. So it seems that even though vondrack was just kidding, he was probably correct.

[steven8r]

I had a similar thing happen to me. Japan got po'ed at my failed attempts to install a spy and declared war on me. I was pretty weak at the time so I bribed America, Iroquois, Russia, Egypt, and some others to help me.

I actually did very well against the Japanese. They had a bigger army, but mostly samuri and/or infantry. I was just beginning to crank out Panzers like mad. I took most of the Japanese cities and never lost any of my own cities. As soon as Japan was wiped-out, all of my allies became Annoyed w/ me. All of them canceled our MPP (which had sprung up during the war). I asked what it would take to renew the MPP and they said that 'After what I had done to the Americans, they couldn't trust me.' I hadn't done anything to the Americans except continue to sell them techs.

In fact, the Americans were the only ones who dropped to Cautious with me. Everyone else was Annoyed or Furious. A few turns later and a few more tech trades w/ America and they were back to Polite. Everyone else still thinks that I betrayed them or something.

However, now that I have most of the Japanese cities, my empire is doing quite well and I'm not afraid of any 1 of the other civs. I just don't want 'em ganging up on me.

[dexters]

I think any country would be po'ed at its allies given such circumstances. It's probably more a reflection of your barbarity in wiping out an entire civ, coupled with other factors--if you became the overwhelming superpower #1 number uno, head honcho, top dawg, the AI will hate you for it. Even your allies.

Same thing happened to me when I wiped out the Germans in a continent I was sharing with them and the Zulus. The Zulus, who were polite up till then, dropped to furious and declared war, before I was ready to attack them. That move probably save them from total annihialation. Although we engaged in 4 more wars, I never did manage to crush them entirely, as I had other Civs to contend with.

It's a rather nice move by the AI, almost as if it predicted I was going to take them out, which I was going to... after I prepared an army. Something I never got to do. The first war infact ended in a stalemate, but essentially, the Zulus, through that single move of declaring war on me, won by making so that i could not take their key cities. I got a few on the fringe, which were going to flip to me culturally anyways.


Of course, one key difference is that I wasn't allied with the Zulus, just close friends, with me giving them 5 gold per turn to pacify them as I wiped out the Germans. Without alliances, ROP or anything like that, their mood was unaltered.

[steven8r]

Actually, I didn't wipe them out. I got them down to 1 city then got a Peace Treaty.

The Egyptians wiped them out the next turn and took the city.

I did notice that the Americans had a large stack of units headed for that city. They were going through my lands to get there, which didn't take too long because I had a ROP agreement w/ everyone helping me in the war.

If anything, I figured that everyone would be upset at the Egyptians, but even Cleopatra was Furious w/ me--and I left the last city for her. (Ungrateful B----!)

Was it because I signed a Peace Treaty w/ their enemy that they got miffed? I did have several MPP's with them, but by this time we were attacking on Japan's soil. That shouldn't have PO'ed anyone, should it?

[dexters]

The AI are self serving SOBs. As they should. They can be manipulated yes, but they come from a perspective of serving themselves first, which is quite different from the AI in Civ 2, which had absolutely no strategy whatsover. To me, Civ 2's diplo stuff seemed something more like a nice interface for exchanging money built ontop of a completed game, and served little purpose.

On the record, for all its flaws and quirks, Civ III's diplomacy is fantastic. Read my post above about the Zulus. They can really surprise you. Repeatedly.

[Theseus]

All Ai civs hate me.

I enjoy it.

It's especially warming when Cathy or Liz detest the very thought of me, but still pay 1000s of gps for a tech.

I've played a couple of games where I managed their moods... it didn't seem to make much of a difference. I know, I know, theoretically it impacts your ability to trade, but by the time that makes a difference, it doesn't quite matter.

I do believe in the Arrian Deception, however.

[dexters]

Arrian Deception?

[Arrian]

I'm pretty sure he means my attempt at wiping out my neighbors prior to making contact with overseas civs. If I pull it off, my reputation is spotless, because no one is left to tell the newcomers about all the terrible things I did. I'm nice to them. I trade with them. I plant cities on their continent and culture bomb their luxuries... and wait gleefully for all hell to break loose.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Yup.

[Fitz]

Steven, yes, it was because you signed a peace treaty with the Japanese.

Reread the thread.

To summarize:
If you sign an allaince and later sign peace with the target of that alliance without first canceling it, you will have betrayed your partener. You cannot cancel an alliance within 20 years of signing it.
If you sign an MPP, and either you or another civ goes to war because that MPP is triggered, you cannot sign peace with the triggering civ without first canceling the MPP, or you will have betrayed your partner. You cannot cancel an MPP within 20 years of having signed it.

In other words, if you sign an MPP and want to keep it, destroy the civ that triggered it, or better yet allow your ally to take the last civ so that they get the "wipe out" on their record. Or let your MPP partner sign for peace first, although that may cancel the MPP (not sure).

If you sign an alliance or MPP and don't care about keeping them, but do want your rep to be intact, be prepared for 20 years of war. When the 20 years pass, call up your partner, cancel the alliance/MPP, then call up the offending civ and get a peace treaty.

MPPs are somewhat superior in this regard, because they hold for 20 years after the signing, not 20 years after the war breaks out. I personally grab MPPs as soon as I am sure I will be shortly attacked by another civ. This usually gives me 5-10 less years that I am committed to war. Especially since that MPP can be a deterant that delays the enemy civ for a few years (or at least it appears that way, not sure thats really coded in).